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Monday, 30 June 2014

Stage Fright

New challenge to work on: getting over people watching me when I ride!

My cousin's new baby is going to be on our yard for a bit whilst she waits for a stable to come up at her place. We've put up fencing across his paddock ready for his arrival on Saturday, so it's all rather exciting! She's got him to bring on ready to event him. He's just come off the track, and is a springy 4 year old chestnut.

So I brought Rio up (he was a little bugger and kept stopping walking up the field - cheers for showing me up buddy!) luckily he was okay once him and Franks crossed paths and he got going. He has a small scab on his right hind which looks like it could be mud fever, so I faffed about a little and groomed him. I sponged it down again with warm hibiscrub and managed to pick off the last bit of the scab, and was busy making excuses not to ride. You see, I don't school very often at the moment, so when it comes to schooling, I get very self conscious.

I'm pleased to say that once I got going, I really enjoyed it. I even felt much more secure in the saddle, Rio had a spook sideways and I don't believe I flinched - that's a first! After we warmed up a bit and got going in the trot, he felt like he was going well enough to try and ask for canter. The first attempt was a bit of a sham, I didn't have hold of the outside rein, so I ended up having a very wonky canter across the school ending up on the opposite rein. I learned my lesson, and when I tried the second time, we managed a canter up the long side on the left rein. He dropped out of it back into trot.

On the right rein, we trotted up and did some circling and squeezed him on into the canter, he went up the long side, I cut him across the school a little before the end (our school is a bit wonky) and continued the canter right back down the long side before I asked him back to trot! We trotted off and then walked out after that - we could only have schooled for 20 minutes or so, but I was already feeling it. Plus I wanted to end it on a positive note.